Leo Fitzpatrick on Kids, Supreme, and His New Palace Ad

The actor and gallerist discusses his Palace cameo with Jonah Hill and the skate label’s new NYC store.

Palace is officially coming to New York City, it seems. The surprise announcement that the London skate label is opening its first store stateside came via a new promo video, this time starring none other than Jonah Hill and Leo Fitzpatrick. Jonah appeared in the ad announcing the Palace x Reebok collaboration last year, a key step in his development into the reigning king of celebrity style. But even more intriguing was Fitzpatrick’s involvement. The Wire star and director at Marlborough Contemporary—where he has his own independently-curated room—is as downtown as it gets, having grown up skating and hanging around with the Supreme crew in the ’90s. That’s when, at 16, Larry Clark picked him as one of the leads in Kids, the transgressive 1995 film that depicted NYC youth and skateboard culture in all its depraved glory. So we called Leo up to discuss how he ended up in the 60-second Palace vid and what the store’s opening in NYC might herald.

The timing of the Palace video was funny because we published an article a few days ago about how Jonah Hill is a cult style icon of sorts.
Really?

Yeah. I’m interested in hearing how the video came together.
The thing I like about Jonah is that he’s a skate rat at the end of the day. He grew up skating the Santa Monica Courthouse, and he knows his shit. So it’s not like he’s just jumping on a trend. He really respects skating, and I really respect skating. So obviously when Lev [Tanju, the founder of Palace] reached out, I said sure sign me up. It’s funny cause Jonah’s joke in the video is kind of like my reality, like I can’t fucking be doing this, I gotta make money. But if it was a commercial for a brand that I don’t support I wouldn’t do it. Shit, I probably hurt their brand more than do it any good. If kids see me wearing Palace they might look at me a little funny, like you’re too old to be wearing that, dad.

So when I was 18 I lived in London for a year, and I got to know all the Slam City guys and that whole skate thing out there. Including this young skater who became a kind of well-known artist named Oliver Payne. So me and Oliver Payne were always friends, and one day he said you should check out the PWBC videos—Palace Wayward Boys Choir or some shit, the early days of Palace before they were a company. They would just make these YouTube montages featuring other peoples’ skaters—it was just this really bizarre take on skateboarding. It’s pretty difficult to stand out in skateboarding nowadays, but they really did quite quickly. And then I got to know Lev.

It certainly feels like the right time for Palace to be coming over here, no?
For a European company to make a big noise in the states as opposed to vice-versa, that says a lot. Its not easy for a brand from England to have the same sort of impact with the drops as a Supreme or something like that. And I think they’re young enough and smart enough that they really know how to master social media. They’re young enough and cool enough to know what kids want.

Your relationship with Supreme goes way back. How has that audience changed since you started hanging out there?
I think obviously the Supreme fan base has changed, but that’s just streetwear culture in general. It’s like Thrasher sweatshirts, when I was coming up and I was a young kid, if you saw someone wearing a Supreme shirt you knew they were a skater of some kind. There was still a code to the clothes you were wearing, you could tell if people knew what was up based on what they were wearing. Now it’s such a big brand I don’t think you’d be surprised to see any type of person wearing it. The only thing that’s weird now is that I get vibed for wearing it, again because I’m older and shit, and kids will look at me crooked and be like How the fuck did you get that thing? You know, like a North Face Supreme collaboration, they’ll be vibing me, and I’ll be like Dude, it’s a fucking jacket.

The way it gets fetishized is really bizarre to me because I didn’t grow up a sneakerhead, now these kids are getting into it in middle school and flipping sneakers and they know the business and they know the drops and this and that. And that has a lot to do with social media. Whereas I have a kid and I can’t keep up with changing fashions and all that shit. If I have something from Supreme, I’m wearing that shit. I wear it to death. And that’s why Supreme supports me, because they know I support them. And you have to remember I grew up being vibed by Supreme. ’Cause I was from Jersey. And Supreme was notorious for all their employees vibing everyone. And I was one of those kids they vibed for years. It took me like three generations of employees till I found someone that liked me. And I get along with James Jebbia and Angelo and all those guys. But to this day I’m kind of uncomfortable going into the store, which is weird.

Right, it’s aggressive, not the employees so much anymore as it is the customers trying to buy the same stuff.
Yeah, and I was talking to Angelo and I was like, Oh hey do you think I can get this ANTIHERO collaboration? And they were like dude, the stuff you want nobody else wants. And this isn’t talking shit, but it kind of is—the idea of waiting on line for a pair of shoes never appealed to me. And that you have grown men getting into fights at these drops is pretty insane. And I don’t think Supreme enjoys it. But for these kids that’s their community, so I understand that.

They know each other not from meeting up to go skate as much as they are to hang around outside Supreme.
There were always the kids who skated, and then the crowd of kids who hung out. And now I’ve noticed that the kids who skate have gotten less and less and less, and the kids who hang out… To me, if my son wants to dress like a skateboarder he better fucking skateboard. [Laughs.] That’s how I feel. We all did it. To be honest I’m probably too old to be speaking on any of this shit. It’s funny that I feel that a small part of it to blame is me and the movie Kids. That kind of started a lot of this lifestyle over actual skating stuff I think. You know, that movie’s supposed to be sort of a cautionary tale, but people glamorize it.

But like the Palace thing, the reason I like it is cause even though Palace is a serious brand, I don’t think they take it too seriously with the advertising. They’re still having fun. I’m sure they’re a little confused and overwhelmed about how big it’s become.

You think kids these days, maybe who’re into Supreme or think they’re downtown, they’re striving for that Kids kind of hedonistic lifestyle?
Yeah, but you know, that was a small snippet of time when you could get away with that. For every guy that went on to become a pro skateboarder, 15 ended up working construction. It’s like prolonging your adolescence—it’s a fun thing but it’s not always a good thing. You only know that when you’ve come out the other side. I meet a lot of people who say they moved to New York because of that movie, and I’m like, what about that movie makes New York look attractive? What people don’t realize that what was happening in New York was happening in San Francisco was happening all over the world, it was just the fact that they turned New York into a movie.

It’s like someone getting into banking because of American Psycho.
Yeah, exactly. I mean I’m glad I did it, it is a piece of New York history. New York has changed so much since then. That was the last moment pre-Giuliani when you could still drink on the street and be a fuckup and nobody really cared. Now you can’t have the same lifestyle. I first came to New York to skate when I was 12 you didn’t cross Avenue A. I’m glad I saw the last parts of that, but to move to the East Village now and pretend it’s 1995, you’re kidding yourself. It’s more about fucking brunch than it is about drinking 40s in the park. But I always say the youth will figure it out. It’s just not about the Lower East Side/East Village anymore.

At least now we have a Palace. I think everyone’s wondering how opening the New York store, maybe near Supreme, maybe not, is going to go.
What’s funny is when we did the commercial they didn’t tell me about the store, it was kind of leaked to me by someone. I was like Oh, that’s what the commercial’s for. I don’t know if it’s a pop up or if it’s a legit store that’s going to be around for a while. But those dudes love New York. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were here for at least a summer. But you know who I really feel bad for in all this? The parents of all these kids. ’Cause you need to be able to afford it. So as long as these kids can get the money, they’re going to buy it. I guess the store opens next week. And they’re bringing a crew over. They’re going to be in a celebratory mood I think. Cause again they’re young dudes! They’re just fucking stoked to have made it this far, and they’re riding it like they stole it.

Well thanks for talking it over.
I don’t know how relevant I am to this whole conversation. Maybe talk to Jonah if you can.

We’ve probably bothered Jonah enough this week. I think he’s a reluctant style icon.
It’s ’cause he doesn’t have a kid. You should see the way I dress.